The Miami Heat may struggle on the road, but at home they are unbeatable. At least over the last 15 games they have been. Thursday night they played host to the Dallas Mavericks, the team that took them out in last year’s NBA Finals. On this night, however, it would be the Heat that would emerge victorious, 106-85.

In a slight bit of irony, it was the Mavs that were the better TEAM last year, while Miami had the star power. On this night, Dallas only had one guy show up big, Dirk with 25pts, but the Heat turned in their most balanced effort of the season. They still have their “Big 3″, yet not a single Heater scored more than 19pts(James and Bosh). Wade and Haslem added 16 a piece. To top it off Chalmers and Norris Cole were both in double figure as well. Six players with balanced scoring like that is unheard of for Miami.

The Heat also dominated the Mavs in several other key statistics. They outrebounded them 55-38 and won the points-in-the-paint battle 46-24. They beat up Dallas in pretty much all aspects of the game. While you don’t want to put too much stock in one regular season game, this was a good win for Miami. It was also a good win for Eric Spoelstra, who held a training camp style practice on Wednesday to try to inject some energy into his players.

Now don’t expect this do be the formula for the NBA Title. The Heat are going to need Wade, James, and Bosh to play big in big spots if they want to win it all. However, they also need games like this so that role players stay involved and can make some big plays themselves when called upon. There is some good news and bad news for Miami on Friday night. The bad news is that they are playing a game on the road again. The good news is that it will be in Toronto against the Raptors. This should be a road win and those have been very hard to come by lately.

About the AuthorSubscribe to author's RSS feed
Written by Sean Eckhardt
Univ of Alabama alumni. Born and raised outside Chicago, IL. Currently live in Florida. Some of my favorite teams include the Chicago Cubs, Minnesota Vikings, Miami Heat, and the Florida Panthers. My interests outside of sports include music, outdoor activities, and anything with a motor(cars, bikes, boats, etc...).